The invention relates to a control system for a vehicle, and more particularly, to a system for controlling vehicle options responsive to a keyless entry remote control signal and for learning and selectively transmitting control signals for actuating a garage door opening mechanism.
Keyless entry systems including a remote keyless entry (RKE) transmitter which transmits a radio frequency (RF) control signal and a vehicle receiver which detects the RF control signal from the RKE transmitter to control vehicle door locks responsive thereto are well known. RF remote controls for actuating garage door mechanisms from a vehicle are also well known. These systems typically include separate circuitry since the garage door opening remote control is typically a transmitter which is mounted within a housing that the car owner may store in the vehicle, but is not integrated into the vehicle electrical system whereas the keyless entry receiver includes an RF receiver which is integrated into the vehicle electrical system. The separate circuitry is also necessary because the garage door opening mechanism and the keyless entry system operate at different frequencies, have different signaling formats, and use different security codes.
A novel keyless entry receiver and a garage door opener remote control is disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/567,390 entitled ELECTRICAL CONTROL SYSTEM FOR VEHICLE OPTIONS, filed Aug. 14, 1990, which is incorporated hereinabove by reference, and assigned to the same assignee as the immediate invention. The system of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/567,390 has an integrated trainable transceiver which receives RF signals from garage door opener remote control in a learning mode and transmits a garage door opener remote control signal which it has previously learned for actuating a garage door opener mechanism without the separate remote control in a transmit mode. The trainable transceiver also receives a keyless entry control signal from an RF RKE transmitter. Although this trainable transceiver provides improved versatility and operating characteristics over prior art trainable transmitters, still further improvements in the operating characteristics of all integrated trainable transceiver and keyless entry receiver are desired. Thus, it remains desirable to improve the signal-to-noise characteristics of the transceiver. It is also desirable to improve transceiver characteristics in the receive modes for the keyless entry operation and garage door opener operation. Because the transceiver operates when the vehicle's engine is not running, it is also desirable to improve the power consumption characteristics of the trainable transceiver.